PCB Quality Engineer

Location: Mountain View, CA

Department: Hardware

ABOUT THE ROLE

Own the technology roadmap, manufacturability, and quality of the advanced PCBs and package substrates that carry our AI accelerator silicon. You'll drive where our substrate and PCB technology is headed — embedded passives/actives, inorganic core substrates, and novel thermal solutions — while making sure complex, high-layer-count boards and flip-chip organic substrates are designed to build cleanly, at yield, and to spec. Partnering across packaging, thermal, and systems teams and directly with our substrate and PCB manufacturing partners, you'll develop and qualify the new materials, structures, and processes that enable next-generation product architectures — and protect product quality where the silicon meets the system.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Drive the advanced substrate and PCB technology roadmap — including embedded passive/active integration and inorganic core substrates — aligned to our AI accelerator product needs
• Develop and qualify new materials, structures, and processes with substrate and PCB vendors, taking them from evaluation through production readiness
• Cowork with cross-functional teams (packaging, SI/PI, thermal, mechanical, systems) to improve and enable new product architectures — with focus on passive/active embedding, novel thermal solutions, and improved SI/PI and mechanical behavior for assembly and reliability
• Lead DFM/DFx reviews for high-layer-count PCBs and organic package substrates (flip-chip BGA / ABF) — catching manufacturability, yield, and reliability risks before tape-out to the fab
• Own substrate and PCB supplier quality: qualify suppliers, drive PPAP/first-article and process capability, and hold partners to spec through NPI and volume ramp
• Define quality standards and acceptance criteria (IPC and internal) that gate build, and drive defect and failure analysis (cross-section, metrology, electrical) to root cause with corrective actions at the supplier
• Support reliability qualification (thermal cycling, HAST, etc.) and use statistical methods (SPC/DOE) to monitor and improve process quality across suppliers
• Build the DFM guidelines, checklists, and quality processes that scale with the program from prototype through production

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• BS/MS in Electrical, Materials, Mechanical, or Manufacturing Engineering plus 5+ years in advanced PCB/substrate technology development, DFM, or manufacturing/supplier quality for complex electronics
• Hands-on experience developing and qualifying advanced substrate/PCB technologies — embedded passives/actives, inorganic and organic core substrates, ABF build-up, flip-chip BGA — including materials, structures, and process development with vendors
• Strong grasp of advanced PCB and substrate fabrication processes (lamination, drilling/laser via, plating, ABF build-up, flip-chip BGA) and where they fail
• Experience partnering cross-functionally (packaging, SI/PI, thermal, mechanical, systems) to enable new product architectures, including embedded components and novel thermal solutions
• Supplier quality depth — qualification, PPAP/first-article, process capability, and driving corrective action with fab/substrate partners
• Fluency in IPC standards (e.g., IPC-6012 / IPC-A-600 or substrate equivalents) and quality acceptance criteria
• Failure-analysis skills: cross-section, metrology, and electrical debug to root-cause defects